


The New Kid

by yutorin



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Emo Keito, Gen, I wrote this before he went to America, Now it just makes me feel extra sad, Okamoto Keito's Life Is Hard, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, i miss him, originally posted in 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yutorin/pseuds/yutorin
Summary: Keito was the "new kid."





	The New Kid

It had never been hard for Keito to be reminded that he was the perpetual _'new kid'_ in JUMP. He loved his group, they were more than just his coworkers and friends, they were his family. They were there for him when no one else was. They tolerated him at his weakest and most pathetic, when he couldn't sing or dance, or even barely speak and read Japanese; his own supposedly native language. He was eternally grateful for everything they had done for him; for all of the acceptance they had given him so readily. Yet sometimes he would still look around and find himself surrounded by people, and somehow utterly alone.

Everyone else in his group had known each other for years longer than he had, some of them twice as long as himself. It was displayed in the way they communicated with each other—the comfortable touches and the boisterous conversations and the seemingly telepathic shared looks across the practice rooms— making it sometimes glaringly, _painfully_ obvious to him that he didn't know them as well as they knew each other. He didn't know Hikaru at all, not really. Not the way Yabu knew him. Not the way Inoo knew him.

He had thought he had found someone that would never make him feel alone when he had met Yuto. Yuto had been his only friend in Japan for months, helping him out a bit even before JUMP, even before he had moved back to Japan, he'd had Yuto. Yet while Yuto had been and still rather was, his one and _only_—the one who understood him the best, the one who was the most patient with him; the one who_ liked_ him the best—he had been one of _many_ for the boy which he adored so much. It was easily brought to light by the way that everyone loved Yuto; because everyone Keito had met genuinely loved Yuto. But it was the most obvious, and the most ostracizing, whenever Yamada was around.

Yamada was _Yuto's_ best friend. Yamada was the person Yuto adored; was the person Yuto had known, perhaps not the longest out of all of JUMP, but the best. They had grown up together, they had matured together, and while Keito had been halfway across the world, they had been together. Yuto was Keito's best friend, and yet Keito was sometimes tossed aside, _painfully easily_ for Yamada. Not that Keito could blame Yuto. He understood. He understood completely. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

And while he loved his group more than he'd loved anything—or anyone—ever in his life, sometimes he'd come into the practice room, or the dressing room, or the hotel, or wherever, and he'd just stop and stand there in the doorway for a moment, and look around at all of the people, looking for a place that he belonged. And they'd all look so comfortable, so perfectly fitting there _without_ him, that even after all of these years he sometimes would wonder what would happen if he were to leave. If he were to just walk away from them. From JUMP. If they would be _better off_ without having to put in the extra effort to try and include the new kid. If they would be better off without him.


End file.
